It's as quick an escape from the grubby business of real life as holding onto a kite and feeling yourself in the sky. Standing by the pond you can just glance up and watch the swallows circling and dipping or the ducklings or the dragonflies or the people fishing. Sometimes there are herons or a kingfisher in amongst the bullrushes. The pond is just large enough too so that you can see someone the other side but not really hear what they might be saying. You need to wander over to talk to them or see how many fish they have caught. Just before lunchtime the Bread Lady hoots her horn round the village, and then there she is in her clapped out white van turning the bend, arriving at the first house coming up to the pond, tooting now at a deafening level. She would stop at everyone's house delivering baguettes as she goes but often as not, everyone has gravitated to the same spot. It's very easy to talk, after all, when you are watching ducklings at the same time. You wonder why more ponds haven't made it into inner city suburbs.